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Media and Politics in Hong Kong: a Decade After the Handover

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Media and Politics in Hong Kong: a Decade After the Handover China Perspectives 2007/2 | 2007 Hong Kong. Ten Years Later Media and politics in Hong Kong: A decade after the handover Joseph M. Chan et Francis L.F. Lee Édition électronique URL : http://journals.openedition.org/chinaperspectives/1673 DOI : 10.4000/chinaperspectives.1673 ISSN : 1996-4617 Éditeur Centre d'étude français sur la Chine contemporaine Édition imprimée Date de publication : 15 avril 2007 ISSN : 2070-3449 Référence électronique Joseph M. Chan et Francis L.F. Lee, « Media and politics in Hong Kong: A decade after the handover », China Perspectives [En ligne], 2007/2 | 2007, mis en ligne le 08 avril 2008, consulté le 21 décembre 2020. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/chinaperspectives/1673 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/ chinaperspectives.1673 © All rights reserved Special feature s e Media and Politics v i a t c n i in Hong Kong: e h p s (1) c A Decade after the Handover r e p JOSEPH M. CHAN FRANCIS L. F. LEE Hong Kong has been through numerous ups and downs in the ten years since the handover. The media have also undergone significant changes in relation to the larger social and political reconfigurations. While the press, driven by market forces and professional ideologies, has continued to provide timely information to the public and to monitor the behavior of power holders, the power center has employed various means to tame the media, and self- censorship remains a haunting issue. hat major challenges have journalists and media istrative policies in Hong Kong. At the same time, the Chi - organizations faced since 1997? How have the nese government began to co-opt local elites to facilitate the W media responded to and sometimes shaped po - smooth transfer of power. Many local elites were invited to litical changes in Hong Kong? What is the status of press participate in the drafting of the Basic Law and/or later to freedom in the city? This article discusses these questions participate in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Re - by analyzing the interplay among the national, the interna - gion (HKSAR) Preparatory Committee. Some were even tional, and the local. We argue that re-nationalization, inter - invited to become members of the Chinese People’s Politi - nationalization, and localization are the three primary cal Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and National Peo - processes of social and political development in post-han - ple’s Congress. dover Hong Kong, and that the interplay among these forces Many of the appointed local elites were media owners. For has shaped the transformation of the Hong Kong media and example, Louis Cha was a member of the Basic Law Draft - their relationship with politics. The following discussion be - ing Committee in the 1980s, at which time he was also the gins with the explication of each of these three processes owner of Ming Pao ((2) . This practice of political appointment and how they impinge on the media. We then discuss how as a form of co-optation has continued since 1997. Sally Aw the three processes are intertwined. was appointed a member of the CPPCC in 1998, at which time she was the owner of the Sing Tao Group. Ma Ching Re-nationalization: Recogniz- Kwan of Oriental Daily and Yang Lan of Sing Pao Daily ing the New Power Center were both appointed in 2003. Other media tycoons who have received political appointments include Peter Woo By re-nationalization, we refer to the process of the political, (Cable TV), Ricky Wong (HK Broadband), Charles Ho economic, and cultural reintegration between Hong Kong (Sing Tao), and Chan Wing Ki (Asia Television Ltd.). and China over the past twenty years. This process can be It is widely assumed that the central government is interested traced back to 1984 when the Sino-British Joint Declaration in silencing oppositional voices in Hong Kong. However, sparked off a series of societal and political changes. Most importantly, a dual power structure was instantiated in Hong Kong in the transition period. Within the structure, the bal - 1. The work that is described in this article was jointly financed by the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (Project no. ance of power gradually shifted from the United Kingdom to CUHK4136/04H) and the State Innovative Institute of Studies of Journalism, Com - the People’s Republic of China as time went on. The British munication, and Media Society at Fudan University (Project no. 06FCZD0021). colonial government had to consult the Chinese government 2. J. M. Chan & Y. M. To, “Democratization, Reunification and Press Freedom in Hong Kong,” In Press and Politics in Hong Kong , C. Y. K. So and J. M. Chan (Eds.) (Hong and even seek its approval on important political and admin - Kong: Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, 1999), pp. 465-407. 49 N o 2007/2 Special feature s e given the promises of “one country, two systems” and a Re-nationalization applies not only to the political-economic v i a t “high degree of autonomy,” overt forms of control and sup - arena. After the handover, social interactions between Hong c n i pression are likely to backfire. Hence, co-optation remains Kong people and mainland Chinese have increased tremen - e h p the primary means by which the central government exerts dously. New immigrants and visitors from mainland China s c r political influence. In other words, political and economic re - come to the city as Hong Kong people head north for work e wards are given to members of the Hong Kong media in ex - and leisure. Before 1997, some scholars pointed out that p change for their good will and support ((3) . Hong Kong people had long treated mainland Chinese as From the perspective of the media owners, cooperating with “the other” against which they defined themselves, but this China is likely to benefit their (media and non-media) business feeling has faded gradually after the transfer of sovereignty. interests. Media owners understand that developing guanxi Poll findings show that the identification of Hong Kong peo - with the Chinese government is beneficial to their participation ple with China has increased over time ((6) . In fact, the more in the market in mainland China. Some of them may also be - concrete contact that a Hong Kong person has with mainland lieve that owning a media organization will enhance their bar - China, the more positive are his or her views about China ((7) . gaining power when dealing with Chinese officials. Media content reflects these changes. In the past, the Hong Meanwhile, Hong Kong newspapers have gradually been Kong media portrayed China as uncivilized, chaotic, and au - taken from the hands of “traditional news people” by profit- thoritarian, thereby defining the cultural boundary between oriented corporations. One of the major acquisitions in re - Hong Kong and mainland China. Nowadays, while the co- cent years was the takeover of the ownership of the Sing opted media tend to depict China positively, even the polit - Tao Group by Charles Ho, a tobacco businessman and ically critical newspaper Apple Daily becomes – intention - CPPCC Standing Committee member. In 2006, PCCW ally or not – the conveyor and promoter of nationalistic sen - chairman Richard Li Tzar-kai acquired 50% of the owner - timents, as illustrated by their coverage of the news on the ship of the Hong Kong Economic Journal from veteran jour - 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing and the visits of Chinese nalist and famous editorial writer Lam Shan-muk. The case astronauts to Hong Kong. was widely viewed as signifying the death of the traditional These cultural and media changes have added new complex - “intellectual-operated media” in Hong Kong. ities to the phenomenon of media self-censorship. On the Communication researcher Anthony Fung characterizes the one hand, self-censorship remains a serious problem in the new media ecology of Hong Kong as a manifestation of non- eyes of professional journalists. In a survey of Hong Kong organizational concentration ((4) . The notion of media concen - journalists conducted in 2006, 29.2% of the respondents re - tration usually refers to the ownership of the greater number ported that self-censorship existed and was “very serious,” of media organizations in the hands of a few big players. 51.9% said self-censorship existed “but was not very seri - However, Hong Kong has been spared the trend of owner - ous,” and only about 3% reported that there was no self-cen - ship or organizational concentration. Rather, Hong Kong sorship. The figure of respondents who report serious self- media ownership has increasingly been taken over by various censorship has in fact doubled from the figure of 14.0% re - pro-China business people who share similar backgrounds ported in a similar survey in 2001 ((8) . and business interests. Sharon Cheung, a journalist re - searcher, conducted a content analysis of eleven local news - papers. She reported that the owners of five of the eleven pa - 3. J. M. Chan & C. C. Lee, Mass Media and Political Transition: The Hong Kong Press in pers hold an official appointment in China and enjoy close China’s Orbit , (N.Y.: Guilford Press). ties with the central government. These papers tend to ap - 4. A. Y. H. Fung, “Political Economy of Hong Kong Media: Producing a Hegemonic Voice,” prove the policies that are issued by the central government Asian Journal of Communication , Vol. 17, No. 2 (June 2007), pp. 159-171. 5. P. W. Cheung, “Press Barons and Press Freedom – A study of newspaper ownership and and dilute negative news about the policies. The owners of its impact on editorial independence in Hong Kong after the decade of rule from Beijing,” four other of the eleven papers have business connections in unpublished manuscript.
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